I was teaching online with another instructor a few days ago when he told a story about retaking the GMAT (as we instructors often do). He and another woman were riding up in an elevator to the testing facility, and they struck up a conversation. When she found out that he was a Manhattan Prep GMAT instructor, she said, “Quick, tell me something I just HAVE to know for the test!” Talk about pressure!! So, I started thinking about how I would answer that question. Here are the five quick GMAT tips I would tell you during an elevator ride. This is by no means meant to replace actual studying!! These are just quick GMAT tips to keep in mind. (By the way, the other instructor’s answer is below, too—read on.)Read more

What have you been told about applying to business school? With the advent of chat rooms, blogs, and forums, armchair “experts” often unintentionally propagate MBA admissions myths, which can linger and undermine an applicant’s confidence. Some applicants are led to believe that schools want a specific “type” of candidate and expect certain GMAT scores and GPAs, for example. Others are led to believe that they need to know alumni from their target schools and/or get a letter of reference from the CEO of their firm in order to get in. In this series,mbaMission debunks these and other myths and strives to take the anxiety out of the admissions process.

MBA recommendation letters are an important part of your overall application package—they provide the only outside information the admissions committee receives about you. However, one of the most stressful parts of the application process can be choosing your recommenders. Read more

Are you ready for your fourth question? We’ve been examining a Reading Comprehension history passage from the GMATPrep® free exams. If you’re just starting, go through the earlier installments first, then come back to this one—and feel free to do all four questions (one per installment) in a block for the passage. (Take some screen shots or set up separate browser tabs so that you can cycle through them all efficiently.)

Here are the history passage and the fourth problem. Good luck!Read more

The hunt for tricky GMAT Critical Reasoning games continues. (Check up here and here for the first two parts on this series).

As before, I’ll present three types of GMAT Critical Reasoning mistakes I see students (and myself) make, and I’ll give some sample questions demonstrating the trick. Then I’ll give you a number for an actual CR problem in the 2017 OG that has this kind of thing going on in it. Read more

In the first installment of this series, we examined a Reading Comprehension history passage from the GMATPrep® free exams. If you’re just starting, go through parts 1 and 2 first, then come back to this one. Feel free to do all three questions (one per installment) in a block for the passage.

Here are the history passage and the third problem. Good luck!Read more

What have you been told about applying to business school? With the advent of chat rooms, blogs and forums, armchair “experts” often unintentionally propagate MBA admissions myths, which can linger and undermine an applicant’s confidence. Some applicants are led to believe that schools want a specific “type” of candidate and expect certain GMAT scores and GPAs, for example. Others are led to believe that they need to know alumni from their target schools and/or get a letter of reference from the CEO of their firm in order to get in. In this series,mbaMissiondebunks these and other myths and strives to take the anxiety out of the admissions process.

You finally took the GMAT, and though your score was not bad, it was not what you had hoped—not your best score, but certainly not so low that you need to take the test again. With a score just below where you think you should be, should you risk it all and take the test again? The truth is that there is actually no risk in taking the GMAT a second—or even a third—time in pursuit of a better outcome.Read more

Every time you study GMAT Quant, you give your full attention to just a couple of topics. During that time, you won’t be studying all of the other topics the GMAT Quant section tests. The smartest way to make the tradeoff is by going straight to the highest-value Quant topics: the ones that are most likely to score you points on test day. Read more

Each week, we are featuring a series of MBA admissions tips from our exclusive admissions consulting partner, mbaMission.

The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania sent out Round 1 interview invitations on October 31, and once again, the school is using its team-based discussion format rather than a traditional admissions interview to evaluate its candidates. Understandably, Wharton applicants get anxious about this atypical interview, because the approach creates a very different dynamic from what one usually encounters in a one-on-one meeting—and with other applicants also in the room, one cannot help but feel less in control of the content and direction of the conversation. Yet despite the uncertainty, here are a few things that Wharton team-based discussion interviewees can expect:Read more

You’re working through a GMAT Verbal question, following your process, eliminating wrong answers, doing everything right. You get down to two, they both sound good, so you choose one and move on. Check the answer, and it was actually the other one! Sound familiar?Read more

This article is particularly for students who are currently enrolled in a flipped GMAT class. Your teacher will tell you if you’re in a flipped class on the first day. If you’re not in a flipped GMAT class, but you just like investigating different methods of learning, feel free to read on!Read more